{"id":2686,"date":"2011-08-22T20:00:19","date_gmt":"2011-08-22T19:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.singleaspect.org.uk\/?p=2686"},"modified":"2025-11-29T15:16:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T15:16:13","slug":"housing-documentaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/singleaspect.org.uk\/?p=2686","title":{"rendered":"From Here to Modernity"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Click image to see full Wordle<\/a><\/p>\n

Kirsty Wark charts the rise and fall of the Modern movement from the 1930s to its fall from popularity, in three half hour programmes made for the Open University.<\/p>\n

Here follows a comprehensive list of the buildings featured in the programme, in the form of stills.\u00a0 It is not by any means a review of the programme but rather intended as an introduction by way of showing the content.<\/p>\n

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Title shot – click above for larger image<\/p>\n

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The link to the Open University details about the series is here:-<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

https:\/\/www.open2.net\/modernity\/<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

Part One – The 1930s<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mies Van der Rohe – German Pavilion in Barcelona Exposition 1929<\/p>\n

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Villa Savoye<\/p>\n

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De La Ware Pavilion Bexhill on Sea<\/p>\n

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Lawn Road Flats Hampstead – Wells Coates<\/p>\n

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Floor plan<\/a><\/p>\n

Highpoint One Highgate – Berthold Lubetkin<\/a><\/p>\n

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Kensal House – Maxwell Fry<\/p>\n

Ivor Flint – resident – “the flats are bright, they’re airy, I mean they’ve been designed really well because in the morning you get the sun coming through in the bedroom and in the afternoon of course you’ve got the sun coming through in your living room and kitchen.”<\/p>\n

This is exactly what I experienced living at Aragon Tower on the Pepys Estate Deptford and reinforces the idea that a North \/ South orientation is desirable for a rectangular block of flats.<\/p>\n

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Finsbury Health Centre – Berthold Lubetkin<\/p>\n

Kirsty Wark – “The smog deprived the population of sunlight and caused rickets in children, and homes were ridden with fleas and lice.”<\/p>\n

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Read my article on the Health Centre<\/a><\/p>\n

This open reception desk is wonderful and looks as it should be for a health centre and yet I was in there the other day (August 2011) and whole thing was screened off in the most awful way like a high security bank.\u00a0 Nothwithstanding my personal objection to this change it is nevertheless still a functioning health centre (just).<\/p>\n

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Part Two – Post war reconstruction<\/strong><\/p>\n

Spa Green Estate – Tecton – Berthold Lubetkin<\/p>\n

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The estate was the first to be constructed after the war and used concrete box frames in much the same way as Park Hill was constructed some twelve years later in Sheffield.<\/p>\n

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Unit\u00e9 d’Habitation Marseille – Le Corbusier<\/p>\n

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Festival of Britain 1951 – Hugh Casson, Leonard Manasseh, Leslie Martin, Misha Black to name but a few<\/p>\n

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Balloons being released during the Festival of Britain.<\/p>\n

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Royal Festival Hall – Leslie Martin, Peter Moro, Robert Matthew<\/p>\n

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Denys Lasdun – Keeling House<\/p>\n

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Alison & Peter Smithson – Hunstanton School<\/p>\n

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Cumbernauld New Town<\/p>\n

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Ronan Point<\/p>\n

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Following taken from A social history of housing, 1815-1970 by John Burnett<\/p>\n

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Download -> The Failure of ‘Housing’ by Nicholas Taylor – 1967<\/a> Architectural Review<\/p>\n

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Part Three – The death of Modernism<\/strong><\/p>\n

“A new generation was now living in the hundreds of thousands of homes that the Modernists and local authority\u00a0 architects had built.\u00a0 But this was a generation that couldn’t remember the war, or how bad things had been in the slums, the social climate was beginning to change”.<\/p>\n

Robin Hood Gardens – The Smithsons<\/p>\n

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The Modernists were being blamed for the failures of construction companies and system buildings techniques that resulted in poor quality buildings.<\/p>\n

Balfron Tower – Erno Goldfinger<\/p>\n

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Trellick Tower – Erno Goldfinger<\/p>\n

“Despite its massive 31 storeys there are only ten public corridors and the two lifts need only ten stops, reducing the building to a much more human scale”.<\/p>\n

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Floor plans<\/a><\/p>\n

“Trellick Tower was British Modernism’s last stand.\u00a0 Too much had gone wrong and the high rise had fallen out of favour.\u00a0 This was the headstone on the grave of the Modern Movement.”<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/theguardian\/1999\/mar\/11\/features11.g28<\/a><\/p>\n

Prince Charles “carbuncle” speech at Hampton Court and three years later his Luftwaffe speech caused ripples through the architectural establishment.<\/p>\n

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Post Modernism<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The gratuitous use of stuck on detailing such as plastic pediments, columns, pilasters and coloured window frames leading to a cheap and tacky appearance that quickly dates.<\/p>\n

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“In 1988 the Conservative Government put an end to public spending on new housing.\u00a0 Any chance architects had for pursuing Modernist ideals in public housing, were gone.”<\/p>\n

Peckham Library – Will Alsop<\/p>\n

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Sky Houses – Marks Barfield (London Eye)<\/p>\n

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From Here to Modernity – important words and phrases list<\/strong><\/p>\n

Modern-Movement
\nGerman-Pavilion-Barcelona 1929
\nBarcelona Exposition
\nLudwig-Mies-van-der-Rohe
\nSeparation of form from function
\nColumns load bearing
\nCorbusier
\nVille-Savoye Paris
\nPlanning and landscape
\nCIAM
\nBexhill-on-sea
\nDe-la-Warr Pavilion
\nSerge-Chermayeff
\nErich-Mendelsohn
\nAthens Charter
\nWells-Coates
\nLawn-Road-flats
\nJonathan-Pritchard
\nLaura-Cohn
\nHighpoint-1-Highgate
\nBerthold-Lubetkin
\nSlum-housing
\nShared-kitchens
\nOutside-lavatories
\nKensal-House
\nMaxwell-Fry
\nGas-light-and-coke-company
\nFinsbury-Health-Centre
\nTecton
\nJohn Allan
\nWorld-War-II
\nLabour-election-victory
\nOvercrowding
\nSanitation
\nModernism
\nFinsbury
\nSpa-Green-Estate
\nGarchey-system
\nUnite-d’habitation
\nSkylon
\nDome
\nFestival-of-Britain-1951
\nHerbert-Morrison
\nLeonard-Manasseh
\nMisha-Black
\nHugh-Casson
\nRoyal-Festival-Hall
\nLeslie-Martin
\nPeter-Moro
\nRobert-Matthew
\nHarold-MacMillan
\nDenys-Lasdun
\nCluster-block
\nUsk-Street
\nKeeling-House
\nHunstanton-Secondary-School
\nAlison-Smithson
\nPeter-Smithson
\nNew-towns
\nCumbernauld-Town-Centre
\nDavid-Cowling
\nPhillip-Aitken
\nPark-Hill
\nTower-block
\nRonan-Point
\nPoplar
\nRobin-Hood-Gardens
\nVandalism
\nSmithsons
\nBalfron-Tower
\nErno-Goldfinger
\nTrellick-Tower
\nHighrise-living
\nHunslett
\nNicholas-Grimshaw
\nLDDC
\nNational-Gallery
\nPrince-Charles
\nRIBA
\nHampton-Court
\nMichael-Manser
\n1984
\nMonstrous-carbuncle
\nPost-modernism
\nMansion-House
\nLuftwaffe
\nMonumentalist
\nCanary-wharf
\nWill-Alsop
\nPeckham-library
\nJulia-Barfield
\nDavid-Marks
\nSkyhouses
\nDorchester
\nPoundbury
\nDavid-Lunts<\/p>\n

This word list forms the source of the Wordle<\/a>\u00a0at the head of this article.<\/p>\n

The three parts may be viewed at the following links:-<\/p>\n

Best viewed with Chrome since Firefox does not always respect the aspect ratio<\/strong><\/p>\n

Part One<\/a><\/p>\n

Part Two<\/a><\/p>\n

Part Three<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click image to see full Wordle Kirsty Wark charts the rise and fall of the Modern movement from the 1930s to its fall from popularity, in three half hour programmes made for the Open University. Here follows a comprehensive list of the buildings featured in the programme, in the form of stills.\u00a0 It is not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6,8,11,15,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-estates-under-threat","category-film","category-housing-design","category-politics","category-right-to-buy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/singleaspect.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/singleaspect.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/singleaspect.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/singleaspect.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/singleaspect.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2686"}],"version-history":[{"count":66,"href":"https:\/\/singleaspect.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30325,"href":"https:\/\/singleaspect.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2686\/revisions\/30325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/singleaspect.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/singleaspect.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/singleaspect.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}